3 is the magic number
Any eagle-eyed observer will have seen we celebrated our 3rd birthday last month. It feels like a fitting moment to look back on an extraordinary few years and also look ahead, building on what we’ve accomplished in a short period of time.
My last post like this was in June 2020, just over a year from our inception. At the time I spoke about our need to pivot as a result of the pandemic and explained how we were re-focussing and repositioning TXGB to support recovery.
When I look back at the two years that have passed since then, I’m proud to say our ideas worked. We navigated the various lockdowns, invested in our people, stayed true to our beliefs, kept improving our platform and continued onboarding users. This meant that as soon as the market opened we started delivering on our promise.
From then to now we’ve grown the value of trade through the platform at a rate of over 200 percent quarter on quarter. And the volume of trade has grown at nearly 375 percent!
Beyond this we’ve seen real diversity and variety in the types of product, channels and campaigns. We’ve supported VisitBritain/VisitEngland, the National Lottery, the Rugby League World Cup and a host of other campaigns, events and festivals.
We’ve nearly doubled our network of DMO partners and have seen a large volume of DMOs begin to trade through TXGB, with between eight and 22 DMOs taking bookings in any given month in the last year. This shows how we’re driving down commission costs for tourism businesses, and driving up investment in destination marketing and management.
These are all key steps forward.
I can tell you this success wasn’t guaranteed but it wasn’t by chance. These results are a tribute to our team, our platform, our partners and our amazing tourism sector in the UK.
And I can also say with confidence that we are still at the thin edge of the wedge. However, growth at this rate validates our purpose and demonstrates there is huge further potential in our idea. The idea that if we can bring the vast, complex and fragmented tourism sector together, we can unlock the full potential of the market. We’ve never been more confident of this.
As such we’re bringing to market a range of new features, ideas and initiatives to drive these B2B interactions, in more and more ways and on more and more levels.
For example, we are launching our ‘trade portal’ concept, designed to engage the travel trade in a new way. We’ve listened to the challenges from businesses around the world in this area of the market, and have invested in building a solution that we plan to launch and iterate with these users.
We are also launching our ‘community’ platform (in Private Beta), that will bring businesses, organisations and authorities together in a completely new way. Creating a unique exchange of ideas and knowledge, and creating purposeful online communities that drive the sector forward.
We’re working intensely to support our relatively new partnerships with Tourism Northern Ireland and Visit Wales, adding to the strategic work we’ve been doing with VisitBritain/VisitEngland. This extends our reach and opens up a range of new opportunities in these territories.
These ideas, among a whole range of new partnerships, integrations and campaigns make me excited to see what 2022/23 has to offer.
The tourism sector has had an extremely tough time over the last few years – and so now, more than ever, we need the sector to come together. Our goal is to provide the central ground for this to happen.
A digital platform to exchange ideas, knowledge, content, bookings and more. Working hand in glove with tourism authorities, with industry, with entrepreneurs and with community leaders to drive trade, collaboration and innovation.